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The Link Up: Em’s $8 Pantry Org Dupe, Jess’ No-Fail Holiday Gift Idea, And Our New Favorite Fun, Fast-Paced Card Game
Happy Sunday! So now that it’s officially November are you “team Christmas time ASAP” or “team whoa! let’s all wait a sec, Halloween was a second ago.” I feel like we are 50/50 over here (Mal and Caitlin are already spinning holiday albums:)). Whichever team you are on, we hope you had a good week with another fun one coming up. Oh and if you live in the US and haven’t voted yet PLEASE go vote! This is such an important election and among so many important issues, women’s rights is absolutely one of them. We have to fight to protect them. Ok, so until then just sit back, relax, and enjoy this week’s links.
This week’s house tour (not pictured above) is a treasure trove of architectural features and soul. But the story of this home is even more amazing. In 2018, Xan Balding bought back a beautiful home that was actually built by his parents in the 70s and that he partly grew up in! The staircase and the arched windows might be our favorite parts but you need to go see it and read the whole story on The Design Files.
From Emily: I’m deep in pantry org and styling mode and want it to be A. functional/smart/not annoying and B. nice looking. I can get so sucked into buying expensive accessories like that and did indeed buy these chip clips from Hawkins New York (a nice local company to support) but they were 3 for $18 and I don’t really need multiples of the coffee clip. So upon further internet research, I found these which are actually more functional, more affordable, still cute, and GREAT.
From Jess: My cooking adventures are still in full swing. This time I “helped” make a Middle eastern-inspired seared salmon Cous Cous bowl with tzatziki, and roasted tomato sauce with my friend on Halloween (I was only in charge of the tzatziki…baby steps). It was sooo good. As she was doing most of the cooking and explaining the process to me, I was snooping through her things, and naturally, my eyes went straight to this bottle of olive oil. My expert home chef friend thinks it’s a really good product and a great value for the price. Plus it’s less messy since it’s in a squeeze bottle! They are having a sale now so if you are curious this would be a good time to try. This would also be a perfect gift for either the home chef in your life or anyone who is hard to shop for. Add some Maldon salt to the mix and I promise it’ll be a home run. I know from experience. P.S. Add some fresh bread and that’s a perfect housewarming gift too:)
Also From Jess: Another item from this delightful dinner were the bowls we ate from (see previous dinner photo). They were the new Midi Bowls from Our Place. They are pretty, simple, durable, AND their Midi Plates can act as lids since they perfectly stack on top of the bowl. So smart! They also come in four other colors. 10/10.
From Albie: Last year I was introduced to Rainbow High by my mini — it’s an MGA series on YouTube that also streams on Netflix. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that this show makes my inner child as happy as my actual child. To date, she has 16 of the dolls… and trust me there are a lot of dolls! Here’s what I’ve been loving lately — their latest season features a singing competition that includes Rainbow High, its sister school, its rival school, and some international exchange students. It’s very much giving a reality tv competition show. With it, they’ve released a World Tour Bus & Stage Playset and it’s already on the mini’s Christmas wishlist. It’s exactly how it sounds — a tour bus that converts into a stage — and my inner child loves this kind of imaginative play… and so does my real child. As a kid, I had BIG dreams of becoming a choreographer and going on tour with Aaliyah and Janet Jackson. I would’ve loved being able to have a playlet designed to help me play out these dreams with props & things specifically for that… not just dancing dolls around on a table. If it’s half as detailed as the Rainbow High Dollhouse we got her last year, this set may just be the perfect addition to her collection.
From Ryann: I have a brand new card game for all you word game/charades-loving people out there. It’s called Featherbrain and it’s a fun quirky card game that is perfect for game night. It works like this: The player whose hair is the most feathered reads the first card. All other players compete to win the card. The card will have the players doing something like guessing a word that the card reader says backward, guessing two words that are spelled the same minus the first letter but sound completely different, or acting out something ridiculous. The card reader chooses the winner and the winner reads the next card and so on. It’s fast-paced and fun and depending on who you are playing with, really funny.
From Mallory: If you’re looking for a restaurant quality dinner that’s EASY and COZY I have just the thing. The most delicious dish I have ever made is this lemon date chicken and it could not be more perfect for fall!! It’s by my favorite chef Alison Roman (she has awesome YouTube videos every week if you’re interested you should subscribe). It’s one-pot which makes clean-up easy and the date/lemon/shallot sauce is to die for. If you’re going to make this I HIGHLY recommend adding white wine instead of water (it makes the sauce way more flavorful) and I like to use bone-in skin-on chicken thighs because I think they work best with this. Let me know if you try this out!
Well, that’s it from us today so see y’all tomorrow xx
Opening Image Credits: Home of Jayma and Adam | Styled by Erik Kenneth Staalberg and Emily Edith Bowser | Photo by Sara Ligorria-Tramp | From: The New Design Rules
The house tour is so sweet! It’s exactly the sort of home I could see myself living in. Thank you for the inspiration!
Loved the story about the son moving back into the house built by his parents – not just for its sentimental value but the house seems very attractive and livable. And that lemon and date chicken recipe will be on my table this week. I’m also with you on the voting business to secure the right of every child to continue his or her existence inside or outside the womb since women’s rights are people’s rights first.
Ugh, stop
The politicians you’re voting for because you don’t like abortion are going to make existence much worse for every living child and adult in this country. What about children’s right to go to school and not get shot by some incel gun hoarder? Their right to life saving healthcare even if their parents can’t afford it? Their right to drink clean water? Their right to be able to inhabit this planet at all in just a few decades by acting on climate change NOW? You are literally voting for death and despair when you vote for republicans.
Citing horror stories do not an argument make. Your logic escapes me but the right to continue one’s life eclipses all others. Do you want to kill all those who are threatened by dirty water, climate change or death by gun after they are born?
Your only logic is that abortion makes you feel angry so you’ll vote for any filth out there as long as they say they’re going to restrict abortion. I think all post-born, i.e. living humans deserve the least traumatic start in life they can get, and I don’t think children are a punishment for having sex.
Ad hominems do not an argument make. The first thing “living humans ” need is to keep living.
Ugh, stop. Can’t have a conversation if logic isn’t a part of it. Good luck Bo – you clearly need some more education before you’re ready to talk with anyone about this issue. We’re about to hit 8 BILLION people on this planet.
Again ad hominems do not an argument make. Also, according to your “logic” should we kill the excess number of people on the planet? At the risk of an ad hominem myself educate yourself on the real world problem of underpopulation. Since the Green Revolution there has been enough food to feed everyone. The problem is food doesn’t get to people because of tribal fighting. poor infrastructure and corruption to grossly oversimplify the problem, but this is not due to overpopulation. Again please no ad hominems . Personal insults are not arguments.
?Your ignorance is mind-blowing!?
No one called you names, Bo, unless you’re saying that you’re an incel with guns or a republican politician. Now you’re saying that things are more complicated, yet you think abortion is so simple— it’s murder! Bad and sad! The fact is that life is more complicated than that. You never have to have an abortion if you don’t want one (or if you don’t have a uterus). But as a reproductive healthcare provider, I can tell you that abortion is necessary, life saving healthcare that anyone might need in order to live a free and healthy life. Even Christians and republicans politicians have abortions.
Don’t attribute to me that which I have not said. Your “free and healthy life” is bought at at a very high price. – the life of another human being. The millions of abortions that have taken place since Roe can not have been because they were “like saving healthcare” and even atheists and a few Democrats oppose this horrific procedure.
You are right in this respect: you did not call me names but you engaged in personal insults. You accused me of being “angry” so where’s the evidence of that? You accused me of voting for “death and despair” so where’s the evidence for that? You accused me of equating abortion with “murder” so where’s the evidence for that? You run with your emotions and pre-conceived ideas of what someone who opposes abortion might think but this is very sloppy reasoning or none at all. I don’t want to be on my death bed and regret not speaking up. Nascent human beings are not owned by their mothers. Didn’t the slave owners own human beings? Didn’t the Germans fail to speak up about atrocities to their fellow human beings? So don’t tell me to mind my own business by not having an abortion. The dire fate of other human beings is my business – both mother and child but the consequences to the child are far more severe.
Abortion IS going to happen.
Make it legal.
No more underground coathanger abortions!
FTLOG….let the ignorant see reality.
WYKYK.
Bo, really. I encourage you to read outside of your echo chamber algorithm.
Oh JFC you fool. No one has the right to force anyone to do anything with their body they don’t want. Women aren’t incubators. We control our bodies. Don’t like abortions? Don’t have one. You don’t get to decide for anyone else. Even corpses have rights over their bodies.
It’s not a “human being”, it’s a zygote. My bodily rights as a full-grown woman supercede those of a biological reaction with a faint electrical charge.
So when does magical transformation into “human being” happen that would assign “bodily rights” to the growing thing inside the mother, Bad Kittent? The term zygote is so early in pregnancy a woman would hardly know she was pregnant but the zygote morphing into embryo is busy, busy, busy dividing and specializing so that by 3 weeks into the pregnancy a baby’s heart is beating and still mos, women don’t even know they are pregnant so abortion would not be an issue. The ancients seemed to know what we ignore. Generally before 8 weeks the term “embryo means (in Greek) “the young one” and after 8 weeks is known as a “fetus” which means “young one still in the womb.” When are these “young ones” safe from your bodily autonomy?
This is what’s known as the paradox of the heap. We can all agree that there’s a difference between a grain of sand and a heap of sand, but it’s impossible to determine with objective precision when a collection of grains becomes a heap. Part of what makes these discussions so vexed is that determining the moment when a collection of cells becomes something like a person is exceedingly difficult. My inclination is to say it happens either at birth or around the time when a fetus might be capable of sustaining life beyond the womb, but I do acknowledge that this is a hard problem. Now, you seem to be missing some key information–e.g. at three weeks there is neither anything that meaningfully resembles a “baby” nor anything that meaningfully resembles a “heart”–but you’ve also clearly given this some thought. You would grant, I think, that a zygote lacks personhood, but you appear to believe, by the logic of ancient Greek etymology, a fetus is endowed with personhood. Is that right? Would you say that a fetus has a greater claim to personhood than an adult? If so, why? If not, how would you propose legislators craft laws to… Read more »
Um, when they can survive beyond the womb by their own autonomic bodily functions, perhaps?
Everyone has a right to vote the way they want. Blog comment sections don’t change anyone’s mind…agree to disagree and enjoy your extra hour this Sunday!
It’s a sad day when guns have more rights than women.
Right now I’m in Thanksgiving mode, even if it’s only going to be the two of us due to the pandemic. After Thanksgiving it will be Hanukkah mode – it’s all about the latkes!
Alison Roman does not have a great PR track record. Look up what she said about Chrissy Teigen and Marie Kondo. She has apologized – reach you own conclusions. I personally do not care to support her.
She used very poor judgement, spoke extremely thoughtlessly and has paid a steep price for it. Yes, there are other excellent cookbook authors who have kept their PR track records cleaner and others who have behaved far more appallingly. I would love to hear your positive recommendations rather than just a negative here.
I’ve had Alison’s books, Nothing Fancy and Dining In since before the controversy. I’ve cooked a lot from them and can say she really knows how to write recipes that work I’m not here to shill for her.. It’s up to everyone to decide who they wish to support but Alison Roman is a reliable source for good recipes.
Nonsense, Alison Roman said nothing wrong. There IS something off about Marie Kondo preaching about purging stuff on one hand and trying to sell us more stuff on the other.
Alison Roman is a good example of the silliness of cancel culture. She was just the latest target of the mob that exists on both the left and the right whenever someone speaks the truth that either side doesn’t want to accept. That you don’t “support her” is your loss as her cookbooks are terrific.
Totally agree. It’s so important to get out there and vote in this election. Like you said, for women’s rights and so much more.
Dear Team EHD, you do realize that you have readers who don’t support the “right” to kill unborn babies, right? Maybe these kinds of readers don’t matter to you, but either way, I will no longer be reading this blog.
The blog should be about decorating, fashion, etc not politics. Your feelings and thoughts should be kept private just as I keep mine private. There are good people on both sides. Let respect one another a little more.
Ah, but only one side sees women, immigrants, LGBTQ people, and really any and all marginalized people as deserving of having rights and being treated with respect and dignity. Republicans love to be on their high horse about morals but support policies and politicians that are morally bankrupt. Only one side refuses to condemn regular hate speech, attacks on elderly men, and thinks 10 year rape victims should carry a fetus to term.
That little girl was used by Planned Parenthood and the abortion activist Caitlin Bernard to milk sympthy for the cause. The mother was cornered at her apartment and on TV by a reporter and now anyone who tries can find out who the little girl is. She was horribly misued by the cause and you fell right in line.
Bye
The right to control sexuality and sexual and reproductive health is a basic human right.
Actually, I do want to control others’ sexuality being expressed by force on another. Also, what does any of this mean? It is so general it could mean anything. It could be that what your saying is so basic no one opposes it so why say it?
I want to thank team EHD for making and maintaining this beautiful forum in which we can connect and have conversations, even about difficult subjects on which people of conscience can differ. I’ve found refuge here more than once in these stormy times. And I want to thank everyone here who engages respectfully and in good faith. Scorn and contempt are easy, but kindness is a discipline.
Yes to this!